The Scoop
Jacqueline Smith: Nine years and one month later, what have we accomplished?

Published 11:14 pm, Friday, November 5, 2010

Saturday after most Saturdays, a loyal band gathers outside the War Memorial in Danbury and holds signs in protest of war.

They've been at it a long time now. The war in Afghanistan is nine years and one month old today. Unbelievable.

After hundreds of American lives lost and billions of dollars spent, what has been accomplished?

It's a wonder that more people aren't out protesting, or at least writing letters to the editor or their Congressman, to bring home the troops sooner.

I've been thinking about war lately -- the frustration, the bellicosity, and despite incredibly sophisticated weaponry, the sheer primitive nature of human beings trying to kill each other.

Some might say that's a naive position; there are terrorists out in the world intending to harm us, and we've got to root them out, including their leader, Osama bin Laden. I understand that.

But have we stopped terrorism in nine years? No. War isn't working.

Does it ever? In recent months, I've had separate conversations with my two remaining uncles, from opposite sides of the family. Both are in their mid-to-late 80s now, and both served in the European theater in World War II.

I never heard them talk about war when their children and I were growing up, but now, as though many years had to go by first, they do.

They don't glorify war, and I don't think they wish it upon any young person. But they are rightfully proud of fulfilling their duty to this country.

And so as we observe Veterans Day this week, we reflect on the sacrifices of the individual. World War I ended on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, and it was supposed to be the war that ended all wars.

How sad that it didn't, and couldn't.

So many more wars, battles and fights have followed, so many hundreds of thousands of lives lost around the world.